by Imran Hashim
“Well, we do have evidence, Monsieur Blois!” Didi says. “Ursula, please.”
Ursula coolly opens her bag, reaches in and, with a deft flick of her wrist, tosses the bikini brief, which flies towards M. Blois like a limp Frisbee. It lands gracefully on Blois’ table, right in front of him. Blois looks at it and blanches.
“What…what’s the meaning of this?” he stammers, pushing his chair a good metre away from the table.
“That, Monsieur Blois, is none other than Monsieur Dudoigt’s used underwear, that he left behind on one of his visits to Mademoiselle Andersson’s apartment.” You can see that Didi is enjoying his star turn as a prosecutor; for some reason, he is waving a pen and using it to point at every thing and person he mentions—Dudoigt, Ursula, the underwear, even Blois is not spared.
Having recovered from the initial shock of flying underpants in his office, Blois now looks sternly at Dudoigt. “Monsieur Dudoigt, do you recognise this article of underclothing as yours?”
FP has the gall to laugh. “With all due respect, that could be anybody’s.”
Blois looks at the skimpy briefs, then turns a stony gaze to Dudoigt and says, “It could never be mine.”
“I’m sorry, but this is just ridiculous!”
“So you deny that this is yours, and that you made sexual advances on these young ladies?” Blois says.
“I deny everything.”
“Well, that complicates things. Because if you admit that the allegations are true, we could keep this an internal matter and let the Ethics Committee decide on the appropriate sanctions as per the university’s regulations. However, if you deny any wrongdoing, the matter is out of my hands and I will suggest that the two young ladies take their charges of sexual harrassment to the police, and who knows what that would lead to.”
The proceedings have come to a turning point, and you can see it in Dudoigt’s face. Didi seizes this golden opportunity and says, “And I’ll have you know, Monsieur Dudoigt, that Annabelle has close ties to the police. The Prefect of Police is her friend’s uncle, and she will have no problems getting this underwear analysed by forensic scientists.”
And Ursula, who has been relatively subdued till now suddenly bursts out, “Your DNA is written all over those briefs, so stop denying it, you cheating bastard!” I have never seen an angry Swede in my life but I can tell you now it’s not a pretty sight. There is a moment of stunned silence, and then finally, Dudoigt speaks up.
“Monsieur Blois, I would like some time to think about this, before I make any further pronouncements on this matter. Will that be all right?”
“You have seven days,” Blois says. And with that, Dudoigt excuses himself, slamming the door shut after him.
Blois then turns to us. “Well, ladies and gentleman. Could you kindly remove this offending article so that I can exorcise my room?”
Ursula obliges and we thank him profusely, leaving the room victorious and jubilant.
So. That’s the story, morning glory. God, what a day. I feel like running myself a bath with essential oils and just relax now that all this is over, but that’s obviously wishful thinking since I live in a shoebox with a shower stall attached. Maybe I could take a nap. Yes, a nap sounds good and restful and cheap.
I’ve finished all my readings on foreign workers in Asia in general, and Singapore in particular, and I must say that I’m starting to feel very involved with my thesis. The secondary sources have been useful, but my primary sources so far (my helper Siti and her cousin Nina who works for Aunty Susan) have been very uncooperative and irritatingly refuse to corroborate the conclusions of the scholars. For example, the books and articles I’ve read, especially those by French scholars, have found that foreign workers in countries like Singapore, Malaysia and the Gulf States feel oppressed by the ruthless liberal economic system. But unfortunately, my own efforts to tap into these deep wells of unhappiness feel more like trying to squeeze tears out of stone.
Take my interview with Siti last week. At first I started with neutral, open-ended questions like how we were taught, you know, to suss out the real story (her story) and uncover her Voice. But 20 minutes into Siti’s narrative, I decided I couldn’t possibly write a thesis about the four goats her grandmother bought with the money she sent home, even if they did cause much social tension at the local level by charging at toddlers and posing a threat to vegetable patches within a one-mile radius.
So I said, “Siti, Siti, how is it like to work in Singapore?”
“Nice. I like work in Singapore. Everything easy,” she said.
“Yes, continue…” I said encouragingly.
“Ma’am and Sir, and Miss Crystal very kind.”
“Anything else? Please, feel free to say whatever you feel.”
“Sometimes I work very hard, feel very tired…”
Aha! A quote I could use…
“…but Ma’am say I can rest 20 minutes, 30 minutes, no problem.”
Hmm… maybe not. Perhaps a change of tactic was needed. I cleared my throat.
“Siti, do you sometimes feel…exploited?”
Okay. So it was a leading question. But really, it wasn’t like I had all day to extract a confession out of her.
“Exploited, Miss?”
“You know, like people are taking advantage of you. Like people are being bad to you.”
There was a thoughtful pause, and then she said, “Oh yes Miss, yes.” I could hear her excitement rising, and I poised my pen on paper, ready to be the instrument of her empowerment.
“Yesterday, I went to market because Ma’am want to eat fishball noodle. I went to fishball shop and fishball man not there. Only his son. I take one packet of fishball, and he say, ‘Two dollars!’ I very angry, Miss. I say, ‘You think I stupid? You think I new maid just come from village? One packet fishball only $1.50. You are bad man try to cheat me!’”
I gnashed my teeth and stabbed my notepad. Here I am, trying to give this girl the gift of Voice, and all she wants to talk about is livestock and processed foods. Well, if she didn’t have any of the despair I needed, then I’d just have to brew some up myself. So I said, “How many hours do you work a day, Siti?”
“Still same, Miss. I wake up about 6.30 in morning, and I go to bed 11 at night.”
“So that means you work about 16 to 17 hours a day?”
“Yes, Miss.”
“Wow,” I said thoughtfully. “Those are long hours, compared to normal jobs. And how much is your salary again?”
“Three hundred and seventy dollars, Miss.”
“Right, right. I think even factory workers earn four or five times more than that…” I said, leaving the sentence to hang suggestively in the air. I waited a while, but when she still didn’t say anything, my mind just snapped and I asked her a tad crossly, “Siti, are you happy with your salary?!”
“Mmm…” she sounded hesitant. “Miss, can I say something?”
Ha! Finally. “Yes, yes, you can say anything. I’ll only use it for my thesis, I promise.”
“I think it not very fair, Miss. I wish Indonesian maids paid $420, just like Filipino maids.”
Not exactly the stuff of revolution, but it was better than nothing. Fortunately, I’ve got some interviews with Filipino maids lined up this week. The Filipinos speak much better English, and tend to be more educated, more vocal, more feisty. I’m counting on them to be more frustrated as well.
While my intellectual life is in the ascendant, my social life is starting to wind down. Bit by bit, my friends from school are starting to leave the city, some for the summer holidays, others for good. Ursula, whom I’ve been friendly with since the confrontation with Dudoigt, is going back to Stockholm next week. Didi is gallivanting in Marseille with Kevin right now, en route to the Côte d’Azur for heaps of sun, sand and celebrity sightings. And a small group of us sent Urban off at the Gare de l’Est yesterday—he was going back to Berlin, to go live in a squatter community and do his PhD in his spare time.
“Why didn’t you just take a plane back?” Yannick asked as we stood on the platform killing time before Urban had to board. “Isn’t it easier?”
“Not for me,” he said, pointing to his densely studded face. “Metal detectors go crazy around me.”
When it was time for him to go, he went round giving each of us a hug. I shrieked when he put his arms around my waist and lifted me off the ground for a couple of seconds. Then he let me down, fingered the scar on my head, and cupped those giant imaginary balls one last time.
“Don’t lose them. Keep up the fight,” he said, which made me laugh even as I wiped a tear away.
“And you don’t get into trouble,” I said, squeezing his arms.
I felt sad as we watched him board the train, and I wasn’t even that close to him. I leaned on Gula as we waved wordless goodbyes at Urban as his train started to inch forward. Thank God she’ll be here for the summer—like me, she’s only defending her thesis towards the end of August, just before la rentrée. Yannick will be around to accompany her, and Didi will be back next week, so thankfully there won’t be any more sad goodbyes. At least not for now.
“So, you and Yannick, what are your plans for after the summer? Will you be able to stay in Paris?” I ask Gula. We’re having lunch together, supposedly to bounce ideas off each other for our theses, but as to be expected on a hot July day, our minds have wandered off onto more pleasant topics of conversation as we watch the world stroll past the garish, multicoloured Centre Pompidou.
“Oh, that’s no problem,” Gula says cheerfully, in between bites of her medium-rare steak. “I get job here. I ask my father talk to Foreign Minister. Make me diplomat! How about you?”
“Oh, good for you! I’ll probably go back to Singapore. Maybe continue to teach. Maybe not. We’ll see.”
“Why you don’t look for job here? If you go back, you make us very sad. Especially Thierry.”
“What do you mean, ‘especially Thierry’?”
“You mean you don’t know? You want me to do eye-operation for you?”
“I’m serious! What do you mean?” I say. But I sort of know. I just need some confirmation.
“He likes you, Belle! Whenever we go out together, he always sit beside you, stand beside you, always looking at you. Even my bodyguards give me more space!”
Gula turns to the table next to ours and says, “Sorry guys, I drag you into this. But this woman drive me crazy.” Shafkat and Furkat, still sporting suits despite the summer heat, nod their heads, as if to say they sympathise.
“Okay, fine. Now that you mention it, I did notice him treating me differently lately. But I wasn’t sure how to read it.”
“Then I read for you my blind friend—he likes you. And in case you don’t know, you like him too.”
“What?! What makes you say that?” I can feel myself blushing.
“I have eyes to see. We all do.” Gula turns to the next table. “Right guys?”
The two men nod their agreement with surprising enthusiasm.
“Well, he’s been there for me through some rough times, and I’ll always be grateful for that. But we’re just friends.”
“You want to be more than friends?”
I think about it for a while. “Even if I do, what’s the point? I’m going back next month!”
“You don’t have to, if you find a job here.”
My kneejerk reaction is to brush off Gula’s idea, but the more I think about it, the more appealing it becomes. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to look for a job. Give myself the option of staying in this city I love, on the off chance that Thierry and I…
Could we really be more than just friends?
Oh God. Why is my life so hard? I’ve been going through the classifieds, and the only jobs at which I even have a shot are those requiring you to be bilingual. The problem is, they always ask for “native speakers”, which everybody knows is code for English, American, Australian or Canadian. Why do they refuse to believe that a Singaporean can be as proficient as any “native speaker”? If you speak to us, do we not reply in Queen’s English? If you say ‘the city of Ed-in-burg’, do we not laugh? If you misspell it as “definately”, do we not die inside?
What’s more, a job would be welcome given that my money situation is getting from bad to worse. I really need to earn some money fast because I don’t think I can go on living like this much longer, buying Leader Price chocolates, looking out for “Le moins cher!” labels at supermarkets, zooming in on arrows that point to “Promotions!!”, doing mental sums to figure out if potatoes sold in prepacked bags are cheaper than those on the open shelves. It’s the mental sums that are especially breaking my spirit. Anyway, given this dire situation, it’s imperative for me to find a job soon, be it temporary, permanent, part-time, whatever, I don’t care. Just show me the money!
To add on to my list of woes, I’ve only about two weeks left to thesis submission. I’ve already done the first half, which means that I need to be writing about three and a half pages a day, every single day, from now till then. Surely this is doable?
Finally, a stroke of good luck! In my desperation, I’ve bombarded every single Singaporean in Paris and her grandmother with an e-mail, informing them of my job hunt and pledging my eternal gratitude and first-born to anyone with useful leads I could follow up on. This morning, I receive a reply from Deborah Tellier, telling me that there’s going to be a huge food tradeshow in Paris this weekend, and that the organisers of the Singapore Pavilion are looking for bilingual Singaporeans to help out as translators and facilitators. They’re paying €400 for two days’ work, which is fantastic, and as a bonus, we’ll get to keep our Singapore Girl kebaya uniforms (designed by Pierre Balmain, need I remind you). Sweet! I immediately send in my CV to the contact she provides and, in true Singapore fashion, receive a reply just five hours later saying I’ve been accepted! Woo hoo!
Deborah and I, delighted by our transformation into air stewardess impersonators, are just settling in at the Singapore Pavilion’s information booth when I hear her mutter what sounds like a curse.
“What?” I ask, as I follow her gaze down the aisle towards the general purpose room. I see Sonia Bragnard, collecting her uniform from Jessie, the pavilion manager.
“Shit. I was hoping she wouldn’t find out about this show,” Deborah says glumly.
“Why? I thought you were friends,” I say, surprised.
“Well, so did I. But you know what that woman did to me at the Singapore Ladies Club Chinese New Year dinner? She put me at a table with nobodies, while she sat herself next to Ambassador Koh. Okay, she’s the President of the Club, so that’s normal. But as the Treasurer, I should have been at the Ambassador’s table too. Don’t you think?”
I don’t give a rat’s ass whom Deborah sits with at a high society dinner, so I just shrug.
“Anyway, I confronted her about it afterwards, and we haven’t been on good terms since. A word of advice—just be careful around her. She’s very political.”
“What does she do? I mean for work…”
“Well, she tells people she’s an ‘events organiser’, but apart from the Ladies Club, I don’t know what other events she organises. Actually,”—her voice takes on that low timbre reserved for juicy gossip—“I heard that she’s trying for a baby, but she’s having difficulties. Speaking of which, have you seen my little girl?”
She whips out her phone and starts to show me some photos. “She’ll be three this year. Isn’t she cute? I think mixed-race children are so good-looking,” she says unabashedly.
Something tells me it’s going to be a long day. And I’m right, because 20 minutes later, Deborah marches up to me, fuming. She says she has just seen Sonia give her namecard out to the exhibitors as she distributes the show catalogue.
“My goodness! How unethical and unprofessional can she be? We are not here to promote ourselves, we are here to promote Singapore! I’ve got namecards too you know, but you don’t see me hawking them her
e!”
“Really? Can I have one?” I ask.
“Of course, dear,” she says, and fishes one out of her handbag. It says, Deborah Tellier, Director, DT Marketing Consultancy. “That’s it. I’m reporting this to Jessie.”
An hour later, Deborah goes off for some chores at Sectors C and D of the exhibition hall, leaving me at the booth with Sonia.
“What’s the big deal? People ask me what I do for a living, I tell them and give them my card. Is that a crime?” Sonia scoffs as she meticulously arranges brochures in neat little stacks. “You know where all this hostility is coming from, don’t you?”
I shake my head and hand out brochures to passing visitors; I don’t really want to get embroiled in the War of the Posers.
“Her inferiority complex. She knows she doesn’t speak French as well as the both of us. Have you noticed her accent? Sounds like she learnt French from Jackie Chan, doesn’t it?”
I can’t help laughing; it’s cruel but true.
“And remember when she told you she was from TKGS? Actually, she was from TKGS pre-university, not the secondary school. She went to a neighbourhood secondary school, in Bedok or something like that. Honestly, I don’t know how she managed to snag a Frenchman.” Sonia sighs, as if she doesn’t know what the world has come to. “There’s just no accounting for taste, is there?”
The next day is pretty much a continuation of the day before—the witches of Nanyang keep pulling stuff out of their bottomless cauldron of poison-gossip as I try to keep out of their rebonded hair.
Finally, at about 5pm, the organisers make an announcement to officially close the fair. With supreme efficiency, the Singapore exhibitors abandon the place, leaving behind the foodstuffs they don’t want to bring home. There are instant noodles, fragrant rice, frozen prata, cooking oil, prepacked spices, chocolates, packet drinks and every bottled sauce you can imagine.
Things are disappearing fast, and I turn into one of those crazed gameshow contestants, running from booth to booth to pick up stuff I would otherwise have to buy from the supermarket. Deborah and Sonia—who both came with oversized suitcases, like some upscale version of boat people—are doing the same. It’s a free-for-all, but when Sonia spots a cleaner putting away some bottles of peanut oil into a trolley, she stops mid-plunder and goes over to confront her.
